Re: [spoon-discuss] The Grid

[SkArcher <SkArcher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

01/07/2003 05:27:01, Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>I have a question, a straw poll, if you will, for the players.
>
>I am working on a proposal to create a new Grid, one that will 
>hopefully be neater and easier to work with. I want to know what 
>direction we want to take this in.

Simplicity. Self regulation.

>
>Certainly the old grid was modeled like an RPG; each player was on the 
>grid emself, and most of eir grid actions were done by em, on emselves 
>and on objects near em.
>
>However, as we drew nearer to where we are now, the Grid seemed to be 
>progressing more towards a strategy-style game, such as WarCraft or 
>Risk. Land ownership was created such that players, after making one 
>purchase in person, could do the rest from anywhere, even Limbo. Armies 
>were made, so that a player's commands could affect any part of the 
>Grid, regardless of where the origin of the order was. Land 
>Improvements and Remote-Controlled speeders made it possible for 
>intense, heated action to take place on the Grid even if no players 
>were actually there. (such action failed to materialize; this is 
>largely due, I believe, to the sudden arrival of the end of the year; 
>tests, recitals, etc. made many players unable to spare more than a few 
>minutes a day for trivialities such as gaming).

The analogy with Risk and Warcraft is a telling one - Risk it certainly was 
not, as it lacked the pleasing abstraction of Risk.

The problem was that so many of the games mechanisms had been taken from, or 
inspired by various fantasy and sci-fi sources that it was sometimes expected 
that they would work how they were supposed to work, rather than as the rules 
stated they should (Moving toads via the force, deliberately making moves to 
exit sirens etc)

Now, if you could put together a grid with more of a risk like aspect, far 
more abstraction and less recieved meaning, that would be very good indeed.

>
>Both of these layouts have potential. I'm somewhat in favor of the 
>latter, the Strategy Game, because it is new - the RPG world has now 
>Been Done, developed to the point where we could no longer deal with 
>it. But I'm curious to know if I'm alone in this.

Oh, and Dave: please, don't veto the grid prop. r301 deals with a grid that 
was designed for one purpose and got used and reused past the point of 
breaking. As you point out, that rule IS a big part of the nomics history - 
but let it be history and the new one start afresh (yes, i know you can 
change anything in a rule, but it'd be better to have a section in the 
historical docs simply entitled 'the grid' and statrt with a clean mental 
board on this new one.


SkArcher 


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